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<title>the beach is for lovers (not lonely losers) by deoxyribonucleotide</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25388179">the beach is for lovers (not lonely losers)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleotide/pseuds/deoxyribonucleotide'>deoxyribonucleotide</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, Flashbacks, Getting Together, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:06:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,220</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25388179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleotide/pseuds/deoxyribonucleotide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Old friends find something new to talk about.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the beach is for lovers (not lonely losers)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This came to me in a vision or something like that, and I wrote it in one sitting lol</p><p>Fic title is from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzZGLOfIxkM">song</a> by Neck Deep.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rest of his friends have gone to sleep, but Seungmin stays on the shore to watch the bonfire slowly die. There’s something calming about it, how the smoke curls up and disappears into the dark sky. How it appears grey and murky, dancing in the wind in one moment and dissipating in the next. This late at night, he only has the sound of the sea to keep him company, the waves slamming against the breakwaters before receding with a whisper.</p><p>“Still up?”</p><p>Or so he thought he was alone.</p><p>Seungmin doesn’t have to turn to know who it is that’s just plopped down next to him. Hyunjin’s voice sounds gravelly and low, the way it does when it’s weighed down by the last vestiges of sleep. From the corner of Seungmin’s eye, he sees Hyunjin grab a long branch. He starts poking the dying flames like he’s trying to revive them, but the fact is that there’s just not enough wood to keep it burning.</p><p>“Still up,” Seungmin confirms. “What about you? Couldn’t sleep?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Hyunjin says, putting the branch down.</p><p>This is the first time that the two of them have talked one-on-one since their graduation two years ago. Seungmin doesn’t know if he finds that funny or sad. They’d made plans to meet, of course, but those all fell through with neither of them having anything to show for it. <em>I’m too busy with law school,</em> Seungmin would say. <em>It’s Chuseok, so I’m going home to see my family,</em> Hyunjin would text. <em>I’m just not feeling well, I don’t think I can meet up,</em> was another one they used often. <em>My parents are in town for the next week, and I can’t make the time,</em> was uttered frequently, too. Little reasons that were valid, if not a little questionable at times, but Seungmin had no reason to dig deeper, did he? Things were no longer as they were back in college.</p><p>The two of them probably would have continued in this way, like two trains that never stopped at the same station at the same time. But Jisung—because of course it would be Jisung with the wild ideas—had suggested that they get together again, the old gang from the college days, and Seungmin wasn’t enough of a killjoy to say no.</p><p>Months of planning and finding the perfect accommodations and meticulously aligning their vacation days led to this: a weekend out in a seaside cottage in Yeosu. A little parcel of blue sea between two breakwaters that were green with algae. Enough alcohol and food to subdue, if not outright kill, several elephants.</p><p>It had seemed like a good idea at the time.</p><p>Looking at Hyunjin now, though, Seungmin is inclined to reevaluate that position.</p><p>“Why couldn’t you sleep?” he asks, thinking that if Hyunjin had come out here for a conversation, the least he could do is give him one.</p><p>“Just couldn’t,” Hyunjin says, simple and inscrutable. He’s drunk enough that he still smells a bit like booze. Or it could be that he’s sitting close enough that Seungmin’s senses, always hypersensitive where Hyunjin is concerned, are picking the scent up with no trouble. Either or, or perhaps both. Seungmin’s drunk enough to be confused, too.</p><p>“Is Changbin-hyung snoring again?” he ventures.</p><p>“No,” Hyunjin says, and his lips twitch with the ghost of a laugh. “He’s out like a rock, actually. All that Bacardi and Cuervo did a number on him.”</p><p>“Ah,” says Seungmin.</p><p>Hyunjin doesn’t say anything else, either, opting to play with the zippers on his windbreaker.</p><p>There was a time when things weren’t this awkward between them. Four years, actually—the two of them had met at freshman orientation and promptly hit it off. Along the way they’d collected other friends, too, the ‘old gang’ that Jisung had mentioned, but it was Hyunjin and Seungmin who had first met. It was the two of them who, at the end of their freshman year, moved into a tiny apartment in Bomun-dong. It was the two of them who lived together and cooked breakfast and studied and cleaned the bathroom and tended to succulents and bought groceries and ordered takeout and spent nights in deep conversation.</p><p>It was the two of them who had gone four years essentially living in each other’s pockets, but now Seungmin doesn’t even know where they stand. They’re not strangers—they know too much about each other for that word to apply to them. But he doesn’t think that they qualify as friends, either, because friends don’t ignore each other for two years and come up with half-baked excuses for doing so.</p><p>Just when Seungmin’s gotten used to the silence, Hyunjin says, “You know, I used to like you back in college.”</p><p>“I would hope so,” says Seungmin, “since we lived together for what? Almost four years? You don’t live with someone for that long if you don’t like them.”</p><p>“No, you dumbass,” Hyunjin sighs, urging Seungmin to face him. The emotion in his dark eyes makes Seungmin's breath hitch. “I mean, I liked you romantically.”</p><p>“O-oh,” Seungmin says, looking down at his feet. There’s sand between his toes. He feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. “You liked me that way?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Hyunjin says. His voice is so small that the waves almost drown it out. “I think it started… ah, at the end of freshman year.”</p><p>“We moved in together at the end of freshman year,” Seungmin blurts out.</p><p>“We did, didn’t we?” Hyunjin sounds lost in memories. “Those were the days.”</p><p>In light of this new information, Seungmin is forced to take a trip down memory lane, too. There were instances, of course, when Hyunjin would get a little too close or say something a little too sweet or do something a little too romantic. Most of the time, these instances would occur when Hyunjin was drunk, and so Seungmin had shrugged them off as nothing. Just the touches and the words of a man who had too much alcohol in his system to tell people apart. And even when he was sober, it was still easy to shrug these instances off as nothing, because Hyunjin was like that with all of his close friends.</p><p>Some instances stand out to Seungmin, though. He’d always look back at those fondly, back when thinking of Hyunjin didn’t inspire such a sense of heartbreak in him. It was in these instances that he felt the most loved, like a joyful potted plant who had received the greatest amount of sunlight.</p><p>He remembers Hyunjin preparing a dinner and baking a cake for him on the Valentine’s Day of sophomore year, the day Seungmin got rejected when he asked a girl out. He can’t remember who it was now, but what he does remember is Hyunjin comforting him as he cried silently. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on,” he’d said then, furious on his behalf and sounding so sure. “She doesn’t know how good you are.”</p><p>He remembers spending junior year’s Christmas with Hyunjin, the only year both of them didn’t return to their hometowns and families. Hyunjin had been meaning to, but when he heard Seungmin was going to be in Seoul all alone—his parents were to celebrate their twentieth anniversary somewhere warmer—he’d dropped his own plans without a second thought. On the morning Hyunjin was supposed to leave, Seungmin found him in his room instead. “What kind of man would I be if I couldn’t spend one Christmas with my best friend?” he’d asked then, grinning. “I’m too broke to give you a gift, but I think my presence is a present enough.” Seungmin couldn’t tell him how right he was.</p><p>And he remembers that sunny morning in senior year when the results of his application to SNU Law came in the mail. Hyunjin had been through his second-guessing, his multiple rewrites of his application essay, his double-checking of his curriculum vitae and transcript. It stood to reason, then, that Hyunjin would be with him when he got the results—and he was. Seungmin nearly had a panic attack at the sight of the manila envelope with the SNU insignia, but Hyunjin was there to talk him down. He was there to steady Seungmin’s shaking hands as he fumbled with the envelope clasp. They read his acceptance letter together, and Seungmin remembers thinking <em>I’m so happy I could kiss you </em>but being too much of a coward to act on his thoughts.</p><p>Because how couldn’t he be a coward when Hyunjin was the way he was? Hyunjin was beautiful and vibrant and warm and kind. He lit a room up when he walked into it, caught everybody’s attention without any effort on his part. For as much as Seungmin had these instances with Hyunjin, Hyunjin certainly had the same instances with other people as well. He had a small army of exes—boys and girls and people within that and without. And though Seungmin can’t remember any of their names, he remembers seeing them in their two-bedroom home. The sight of them made him accept his position in Hyunjin’s life: he was to be the supportive best friend, the kind roommate who showed the current flame the way to their bathroom. The one who gave them directions to the nearest train station. What other part was he supposed to play when he was just another helpless pin drawn to Hyunjin’s magnetism?</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me back then?” Seungmin asks now, because he is as much of a masochist as he is curious.</p><p>Hyunjin seems to have foreseen that he’d ask this, though, because his answer is quick. “I didn’t want to deal with rejection. You know I’m horrible at <em>not</em> getting the things I want.”</p><p>Seungmin snorts at his words. He can’t remember a single time when he’d refused Hyunjin anything. “You would’ve gotten them, though. I liked you, too.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You heard me,” Seungmin says. He’s too embarrassed to say it twice.</p><p>This time, it’s Hyunjin’s turn to go silent.</p><p>The flames of the bonfire continue to die a slow, sweet death before them.</p><p>“Well, why didn’t <em>you</em> tell me?” Hyunjin asks, tone a little defiant as he flips the question back at Seungmin.</p><p>“I didn’t want to deal with rejection, either,” answers Seungmin, “and besides, you were… busy. With other people. I don’t know where I fit in that. Or if I had anywhere to fit.”</p><p>Hyunjin considers his words for a moment. “I wasn’t busy with them,” he says, fiddling with his windbreaker again. “I was just passing time.”</p><p>“Isn’t that kind of rude?”</p><p>Hyunjin waves a hand in dismissal. “Nothing I didn’t tell them at the start of the relationship. They knew what they were getting into.”</p><p>A few more silent minutes pass. Seungmin listens to the sea and pretends to be calmer than he is.</p><p>Since they’re already doing an honesty hour of sorts, he finds it appropriate to ask, “Were you avoiding me on purpose or, um. Accidentally, all this time?”</p><p>(As the words fall from his lips, though, he realizes that the question is rather stupid. No one avoids someone accidentally. Even he is guilty of deliberately turning Hyunjin down.)</p><p>“At first, it wasn’t on purpose,” Hyunjin begins. “The folks at the firm really had me working like a horse the first few months. They did that with all fresh graduates, apparently. And then I realized—as much as I wanted my feelings for you to go away, they didn’t. I thought for sure when you moved out that they would.  After a while, work started to taper off. They finally stopped treating me like their errand boy and gave me a promotion. But I still liked you, and I didn’t want you to overwhelm me. I thought, ‘Oh, maybe if I see him again it’s all going to come rushing back’. I couldn't have that. So I… fielded your invitations with excuses. And then you did the same, and I realized that we were never going to be the way we were before. I needed to let things go.”</p><p>Seungmin has to admit that it stings a little to hear that from Hyunjin. “So you avoided me because you wanted to get over me?”</p><p>Hyunjin smiles, but it isn’t happy. “You could put it like that.” Just like earlier, he flips the question back at Seungmin. “What about you? Were you avoiding me on purpose, too?”</p><p>“It’s a bit the opposite of your case, actually,” Seungmin says. “My first months at SNU weren’t hectic.”  Hyunjin's brows rise at that, and that makes him amend his words. “Okay, the first few months <em>were</em> hectic, but they were manageable. But every time I got one of your texts, I just… I just remembered how we were in college. How I always seemed <em>this</em> close to getting you how I wanted to, but I never did. I couldn’t live like that anymore. What if you called me up and told me you had a new boyfriend? It was easier to deliberately avoid you. And then law school picked up for real, and suddenly I had entire books to read on Contracts and Torts and Constitutional Law, and I literally couldn’t find the time, and—yeah.”</p><p>Seungmin doesn’t feel any better for having said that. Instead, he feels like a fool. If he and Hyunjin really did feel the same way about each other in the past, then he’s the idiot who missed his chance. What makes him feel worse is the fact that he’d noticed all these incidents before, and he played them off as nothing. He should have taken the risk. He should have made the first step. He should have fucking asked.</p><p>“You’re frowning,” Hyunjin says.</p><p>It’s only then that Seungmin realizes how pinched his expression must have gotten. Of course he’s frowning; he’s just realized how much of an idiot he has been all this time. But god, if Seungmin didn’t ask questions before, then he would start asking them now. They’re going on to their separate lives after this, anyway. If this falls through, he can just throw himself back into law school, and at least now he would have answers—even if they were no.</p><p>“Do you think,” he begins, his voice shaking. He can’t bear to look at Hyunjin, so he looks at the ocean instead. “Do you think you could still like me?”</p><p>Beside him, Hyunjin gives a funny choked-off sound. “What do you mean, do I think I could still like you? I never stopped liking you.”</p><p>“But it’s been two years—”</p><p>“I know,” Hyunjin cuts in loudly. “I <em>know</em>, Seungmin. I’m not sure if it’s some kind of—nostalgia thing, or whatever. But I still like you. If I didn’t, then why do I get so hurt whenever you turn me down?”</p><p><em>But I also get hurt when you turn me down,</em> Seungmin thinks, and the voice in his head sounds a little lost.</p><p>“You do?” asks Hyunjin.</p><p>Seungmin swears. “Did I say that out loud?”</p><p>“Yeah, you did,” says Hyunjin. “So we still like each other? Is that what’s happening here?”</p><p>“I think so,” answers Seungmin. He never expected that this would happen. Or rather, he hadn’t allowed himself to harbor the hope. When he’d agreed to Jisung’s harebrained plan of a cozy little get-together, it was mostly because Minho threatened to murder him if he didn’t come. He didn’t allow himself to even consider that Hyunjin was going to be with them. For all intents and purposes, he considered the getaway with only six other people in mind.</p><p>He should have known better, though. Two years away from Hyunjin didn’t have the intended effect of stamping out his feelings; what made him think that two nights with him would?</p><p>All roads to lead to Rome, or some such like that. In Seungmin’s case, it’s all roads lead to Hyunjin.</p><p>“So where do we go from here?” Hyunjin asks. “What happens now?”</p><p>Seungmin gives it some thought. “We should talk more in the morning. I’m sure we still have some other things to clear up. And then—we still have each other’s numbers, right, so we can meet up in the future. When we want to, when we’re free. Finally get around to those coffee dates we keep talking about.”</p><p>“And then?”</p><p>“We go slowly,” Seungmin says. “We don’t have any choice. We’re both busy—I think my third year at Law might actually kill me—but I… I’d like to see you again, Hyunjin. We’re not getting any younger, and I want to do things right.”</p><p>“‘We’re not getting any younger’?” Hyunjin says, giggling, his fingers making air-quotes. “Why’re you talking like we’re already in our forties? And I thought <em>I</em> was supposed to be the dramatic one. We’ll go as slow as you want to, Seungminnie—ah, can I still call you that?”</p><p>Seungmin nods jerkily. Old habits die hard, it seems.</p><p>“And I want to try, too,” Hyunjin says, quiet. “I’m sorry that it’s taken us a bit of time to get here, but… well. At least we’re here now. We’ll be more honest this time around, won’t we?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, too,” Seungmin says. “And yes. Let’s be honest, and just… talk things through. We’ll figure it out.” <em>I want to figure it out. If it’s for you, I’ll make every effort to figure it out. </em></p><p>A sudden wind blows, killing the last small fire in front of them and leaving smoldering embers in its wake.</p><p>“Okay, since we’re all about being honest now,” Hyunjin starts. There’s a smile on his face, and he’s so beautiful it makes Seungmin’s heart hurt. “I know you’re not big on skinship, but can you give me a hug?”</p><p>The question’s barely out of Hyunjin’s mouth before Seungmin is pulling him into a warm embrace. Hyunjin tucks his head into the crook of Seungmin’s neck, sighing. His hair smells like salt and sunblock and beer—what a horrible combination that is—but Seungmin doesn’t care. What matters the most right now is that he’s got Hyunjin with him. And although tomorrow is uncertain and anything can happen, he has the feeling that things will be better.</p><p>He has hope, he realizes. Hope, and the promise of a coffee date, or perhaps a trip to the movies, or a tour around a museum. Hope, and another try with Hyunjin.</p><p>Seungmin’s startled out of his daydreams when Hyunjin shivers against his chest. His windbreaker’s only good for so much; the wind is picking up speed and there’s nothing left of the bonfire. Seungmin himself is in a thicker jacket, but even he is starting to feel the chill.</p><p>“Let’s go inside, Jinnie,” Seungmin murmurs. “It’s getting colder.”</p><p>Hyunjin stands up, staggering slightly, but Seungmin supports him with a hand at the small of his back. He smiles at Seungmin, saying, “Hey, do you wanna hold my hand?”</p><p>Seungmin does, so he does.</p><p>The night is silent save for the crashing of the waves. As they walk back to the cottage, Seungmin spares a glance at the bonfire, the heap of wood and ash that it has become. <em>We’ll keep the fire burning this time around.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><s>Ben Barlow literally sang <em>There's more to life than chasing ghosts</em> and I still proceeded to write a fic about chasing ghosts</s> at least they end up together, right?</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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